Watercoolergames has an interesting write-up about the Super Columbine Massacre RPG, online reaction to it, and how the Associated Press sensationalized an already controversial subject to even further raise the hair on the necks of people everywhere. I’m not sure I agree with using videogames for more than just entertainment, but people will use anything as a vehicle to get a message across these days, so it is inevitable.
I knew that public reaction to the game would be largely negative. I’ve received plenty of hate mail just for talking about the game. But I don’t think I was fully prepared for the widespread ignorance that has accompanied reception to the game. I think those of us deeply mired in the fields of Serious Games or Games for Change or Videogames with an Agenda or even just videogame development underestimate just how long a road we still have to tread for videogames to be treated as a medium of expression commensurate with film, literature, and art.
It looks like the god of Scientology, Xenu, does not favor those who play video games. I guess it messes with your Thetan level? Tom Cruise, a scientologist (is that what they are called?) has banned video games in his house. Even television is prohibited, although not suprisingly, movies are okay.
Tom Cruise sets the ground rules in his house by banning videogames for the Microsoft Xbox 360, Sony PSP, Nintendo DS, PC, and any Nintendo related console games. All video game consoles banned too. In addition, all reading material for any games, especially for the Sony PS3 and Nintendo Wii are also banned.
Best Buy was wooed into stocking their store shelves with a boxed edition of IG: Independent Games ($28). These are games that won at the Independent Game Festival. This is a great way to expose some creative, and fun, games that wouldn’t have gotten a chance for mass exposure otherwise.
“Indie games aren’t commonplace outside of the World Wide Web. Despite that, Moondance successfully wooed Best Buy to stock ‘IG: Independent Games’ on their shelves beginning last fall. The disc features such casual games as the engineering sim ‘Bridge Construction Set’ and the popular robot battle game ‘Dark Horizons Lore Invasion.’ ‘Our strategy is to have games for all kinds of gamers: traditional gamers, family gamers and now independent gamers,’ says Chris Koller, merchandising director for video games at Best Buy.”
This has nothing to do with voyeuristic activities on game developers, but rather an MTV-produced video of a roundtable discussion with heavyweight game designers like Will Wright (Spore), CliffyB (Unreal Tournament series), Harvey Smith (Deus Ex), and David Jaffe (God of War). The discussion touches on topics such as violence in videogames, dream projects, and more.
If you’re using Firefox, you’ll have to install an ActiveX plugin in order to view this video.
A study suggests that playing a game like Super Monkey Ball for 20 minutes before surgery can help prevent surgical errors from happening. This sounds about right, because video games is all about hand and eye coordination, which is right in line with surgery. So next time you go under the knife, ask your surgeon if he wants a quick time trial of Super Monkey Ball.
Researchers found that surgeons who played video games immediately before the drill completed it an average of 11 seconds faster than those who did not. Any errors committed during the training lengthened the time it took to complete the task — indicating that faster finishers made fewer mistakes.
Before the FedEx promotional film, Cast Away, there was The Wizard, a film that heavily promoted Nintendo and Super Mario Brothers 3, even the short-lived Power Glove made an appearance (did you know that was Spiderman/Tobey Maguire showing it off?) Well now according to 1UP, we can expect a DVD edition of The Wizard, due out August 29th. You can check out a trailer of the movie on YouTube. It is cheesy by today’s standards, but when I was a kid, The Wizard was awesome.
After successful stints with pen-and-paper RPG boardgames, and creation of stellar games such as Morrowind, Oblivion, and Sea Dogs, Ken Rolston has decided to retire from the gaming industry now that Oblivion is on store shelves and winning critical acclaim.
[H]Consumer interviews him to get his thoughts as he is heading out the door. Some interesting statements here, and it seems he’s definitely an old school gamer that appreciated the simpler times of gaming when multi-million dollar budget wasn’t required to create a fun game.
In your long career in gaming, of what are you most proud?
Ken Rolston: Humble, actually, is better than proud. My contributions to the development teams of West End Games, Chaosium, and Bethesda Softworks have been the most fruitful — all three remarkable collections of creative talent. I’m very fond of PARANOIA, and I’m also inordinately fond of Morrowind, blemishes and all.
After stating intent on going with original IP, EA decided to partner up with Steven Spielberg, hoping to get something big out of him for some upcoming games. My opinion is that going to movie-makers to help create games is shooting yourself in the foot. Not only have games based on movies been notoriously money-wasting opportunities to bilk unsuspecting gamers, but scripts tailored for the movies don’t necessarily translate well to gaming methodologies.
Gamasutra talks with EA L.A.’s Neil Young about issues such as emotions from games, intellectual properties, and overtime in the industry, as well as the partnership with Spielberg.
With specific regards to new franchise IP, aside from the things that we’ve acquired, there are other things like the partnership with Steven Spielberg, and that’s focused exclusively on producing original, new intellectual property. And I was looking at the list of everything we’re working on across all studios last night, and there’s a lot of stuff there. There’s like 15 or 20 new, original concepts [in any stage of development] right now. So maybe two of them will work.
The game, Rag Doll Kung Fu, was an innovative, yet quirky game that came out on Steam a while ago. While it was certainly fascinating, it didn’t have the lasting appeal, but it is efforts like that one we want to foster in the PC gaming industry. With that in mind, the creator of the game has formed his own game development studio, Media Molecule, which will also consist of former Lionhead developers. Hopefully we can expect some quality, innovative games from this studio.
A demo for IO Interactive’s assassination action game, Hitman: Bloody Money, is available for download today. It features a single level in the game, and weighs in at a hefty 759MB. Grab it from 3D Gamers, VGPro, or 4players.de.
This demo contains the first mission of the game, Death of a Showman. As the world’s deadliest assassin, Agent 47, you have been offered a high-paying contract to take out Joseph Clarence aka The Swing King. Your client has asked that his recently deceased son’s picture be the last thing The Swing King sees before you end his life. Death of a Showman is the first level of the game and provides gamers a refresher course in the mechanics of being the world’s deadliest contract killer while tracking your target through a dilapidated theme park turned drug lab. Get a sneak peak at the incredible new graphic engine, ultra-realistic AI, and try out a few of Agent 47’s new moves.
It looks like Half-Life 2 envy gave everyone at E3 crabs, because that was the theme with a lot of games this year. Crabs! This hilarious blog post outlines all the games that got crabs that was shown at E3 this year.
Due to the “me too” nature of a lot of game publishers, pretty much every E3 has a very visible trend, like toon shading or World War 2 shooters. The trend that was noticeable this year, to me, was crabs. Yes, crabs. It became very obvious right from the start during Sony’s press conference. Microsoft’s subsequent showing confirmed it.
The industry is pushing for all PC games to come in DVD boxes. They don’t think that all games should come on DVD’s, instead of forcing us to swap CD’s constantly to play a game, thus wearing them out faster and increasing the chances of getting a corrupted/scratched disc. Save them money, but don’t let us save any money, is their motto, apparently.
The Interactive Entertainment Media Association (or IEMA to its close friends) is doing just that. The group today announced a new packaging scheme for PC games, offering a PC banner for the top of the box, a new “PC Icon” design (you know — the rectangle in the corner with “PC” in big white letters), and recommending DVD-style boxes similar to those used for console titles.
Gamers with Jobs has an interesting article about our history with violence over the years when we play videogames. Have you ever sat back and thought about the countless foes you’ve killed, butchered, and disposed of? The big D word, desensitization, is employed as well. A philosophical look at your videogaming habits.
So many of our games are inextricably linked with violence, but it’s a violence which typically does not move us in any way. Think about every game you’ve played. Think about every character you’ve killed. Try and compose a mental list of in-game obituaries. For how many of these deaths do you feel anything resembling remorse?
When I went to E3, it was loud. Very loud, and combined with the bright flashes of light, booth babes, sweaty nerds everywhere, and the constant walking, it was an assault on the senses. It’s been known that each booth or stage for each company likes to attract attention with loud noise, music, sound effects, marketing pitches, etc. When two companies do this near each other, they get annoyed when the other try to drown the other out. Then a noise war will develop. Organizers for the E3 event try to keep a handle on the situation by imposing noise restrictions, and fines companies if the rules are broken.
This year, NCSoft got hit with a fine for $5,000 for breaking the noise rule. NCSoft held live music events to promote their upcoming game, Tabula Rasa. They contested the fine, but will pay it, and promised not to attend E3 next year, but pull a Godgames and hold a party nearby the convention center in order to promote their games (as loud as they bloody want.)
NCsoft’s booth at E3 2006 consisted of a large stage area where live music sets were repeatedly played to promote the company’s forthcoming MMO title, Tabula Rasa. The crowd were encouraged to applaud as loudly as possible, although NCsoft maintains that there were louder noise levels from rival publisher’s stands and that the situation was monitored by its staff during the event.
After neglecting the PC gaming industry in favor of their Xbox console, Microsoft says they want to kiss and make up, and pay attention to the PC gamers again. This coming from the company that snatched Halo away from PC gaming, I won’t exactly hold my breath.
Then again, Vista is on its way, so Microsoft want to maximize revenues when it comes out by kissing the feet of PC gamers, who they know are always the early adopters of new software and technology.
“We have neglected the PC business, but it’s time to remember that it’s a strong platform with the potential to reach hundreds of millions of gamers,” said Peter Moore, gaming chief at Microsoft.
Microsoft’s marketing campaign for the PC was depending on shipment of its new Windows Vista operating system in the fall. The consumer version of Vista has now been pushed back to January, and that could hurt Microsoft’s plans to lift demand for PC games in the fall.
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